Pacific NW

Expeditions

Several inches of snow covered the decks of Silent Partner this morning. Daylight came as a relief (as always) after a night of standing watch. Christoph and I stoked the fire and played a heated game of scrabble at dawn, and cooked up some oats and grits. Immediately after the last letter had been played in our game, what we had been waiting and watching for all night, happened: the remainder of the ice sheet broke apart. Ice grated against the hull for a few seconds and then we broke clear of the sheet, drifting down the inlet. “That’s our cue to leave” I remarked to Christoph, and I hurriedly dressed and manned the helm. Our plan was to watch the Sawyer glacier again all day, but we were thwarted in several ways. A vast part of the ice sheet had drifted all the way to the other end of the inlet, choking the entrance to the north arm and Sawyer glacier. We came to yet another grinding halt as the ice became too thick to break. We backtracked several miles and found a small route through to the north arm finally. But once inside, a wind picked up and carried us through the dense iceberg field in front of the glacier. It was too windy for safe navigation, as we were slamming into larger and larger blocks of ice in the wind. We soon retreated from the inlet, but were met, once again, by the ice sheet. It had shifted and was now completely blocking our exit from Tracy Arm. Trapped! Lee and Christoph chopped away at the ice sheet in front of the boat, and we made an attempt at breaking a channel through. The wind picked up more and hampered our efforts, but eventually we were able to cleave the mighty ice sheet in two, and gained open water once again. Once in the the main arm, we were greeted by a blizzard and white-out conditions. Numerous icebergs materialized out of the whiteness, creating a hazard to navigation. We reduced speed, frequently clearing the dodger of ice and snow. Toward late afternoon we made it back to Tracy Arm Cove, and it turned into a nice evening. Our fourth night in this cove, and it is beginning to feel like home! Lee and I went to shore and explored a forest with massive spruce trees. I hiked up a small river, climbed a spruce tree, and watched the mountain peaks turn orange and pink with the setting sun from my perch.